Get blue light in the morning (preferably from yellow sun lighting up blue sky) to shut off melatonin production; turn off all blue-light emitting electronic devices (CFL, cellphone, TV, computer) a full hour before you want to go to sleep:
As William Dement, MD, PhD, said in The Promise of Sleep, you have to build enough sleep debt before you can sleep; not fully awake - in the brain chemistry sense - means not building sleep debt. It becomes a vicious cycle.
Supplementing with melatonin preworkout is shown to provide a good boost of GH post workout. Not sure how significant it would be, but intersting nonetheless.
“one study administered daily 5 mg doses of melatonin for two years to its subjects without seeing any adverse effects”
5mg seems like a bit much, too. I bought a bottle of 5 mg tabs and take only a half each night. I’ve had terrible sleep issues and this seems to completely take care of it. Looks like melatonin has a lot more health benefits than just aided sleep.
Ive been using liquid melatonin for yrs sometimes 7 days a week,its perfect and no ill affects and at last check was 1 of very things that can reset the sleep wake cycle…NOW FOODS VERSION VERY CHEAP,LASTS FOR MONTHS
I take it sometimes but it makes me depressed. As well there is an addiction factor because then I start to rely upon it. It says right on the side of my bottle “do not take for any more that 4 weeks without speak to your doctor” and “do not take if you have problems with depression”.
Well since melatonin and cortisol are antagonistic - you might want to consider addressing your adrenal dysfunction instead of taking melatonin as merely a band-aid approach. The only problems I remember reading about was to not give melatonin to a person with a still-developing brain i.e. teenagers.
I’ve used melatonin off and on for some time, and I used to use the 5 mg time release dose. However, I spoke to someone who claimed that less can be more with melatonin, and I noticed a positive difference when I cut back to a 3 mg time released dose. Apparently it has to do with the dosage mimicking the body’s natural production, but this is just what I was told (not what I read). My GP claims that he prescribes 8 mg - 15 mg for acute sleep problems, and that there is no problem taking it every day. YMMV.
I have also taken Ambien CR (time release) with time release melatonin as well, but my big beef with Ambien CR is that I adjust to it very rapidly (within a couple of days or so).